Category: Reflections

Okay, Bitcoin is mooning (yay!), so are the 2019-nCoV cases. Over the past few days, many of my groupchats had been flooded with tons of videos/ messages of nCoV virus news, prevention tips and many more. However I notice a trend that suddenly, everyone become 鼠(su)per duper paranoid, overstoring of:

Surgical Masks

Sanitizers

Dettol Wipes

Alcohol Swabs

And it hit me real hard when my family members started to stop me from going to the mall near home due to suspected case surfacing. Even the paranoid-ness set in with my daughters and it placed me in a dilemma.

I wondered. What will happen to the economy? Ok maybe for the fact that that the purchases of the masks and etc will thrive but what about the others?

To be real honest here, I always feel that we just need to be socially responsible and not overly paranoid, to protect ourselves and to others especially during this time of crisis.

And how should we start?

Do not hoard supplies of the above 4 mentions. Some people might need it more than us.

When sick, do not go out and loiter. Stay home or minimize contacts with anyone. Wear a mask when stepping out.

Avoid touching handle bars, grips, metal surfaces and then rubbed your eyes/ put it into the mouth. Please note this for the kids.

Drink the daily Vitamin-C and plenty of plain water. Plain water help to flush out the “toxic”.

EAT YOUR GREEN VEGETABLES and less of raw foods and do not go near livestock.

Squeeze/ Cough into tissue paper and fold it in and dispose into the trash bins.

LASTLY, do not spread FAKE NEWS. Get the latest updates from the Government sites. Otherwise sign up with Gov.Sg WhatsApp via: https://go.gov.sg/whatsapp

Take good care of the babies, young children and elderly as their immune systems are lower as per compared. Oh yes and pregnant mummies~

During this time of crisis, we need to really be socially responsible for the benefits of others. Because imagine, if we really hog the masks, practise all the good habits and etc, and someone really sick decide to go out to shop and then we kana. It’s seriously a wtf situation and don’t make any sense at all.

I do understand that everyone will argue about the 14-days pre-hibernation period that the virus might not be detectable but as long we practise the good habits, there is a good percentage that the virus might not spread like wildfire or maybe “killed” by the soap and all before it penetrated into our body/ immune system.

And it really saddened me that some of the people whom I know that needs the alcohol stabs for their medical condition is unable to purchase what they need due to OOS.

On another random note; Oranges are good source of Vitamin-C and thus I used the left over Mandarin Oranges to make fruit juices and ice pops to make sure the kids are well covered with Vitamin C and minimize outings for them.

Mandarin Orange Icepop! 🙂

Ironically, it made us more opportunities to bond together as a family nucleus, because the kids had already planned out what to cook for lunch/ dinner over the weekends as we will be “stuck at home”. Although many times when I passed by Orchard Central and all, there is NO/ lesser crowds.

My hearts goes out to the Business Owners, Patients, Kins of Patients, Frontline Personnels and the people in Hubei/ Wuhan – Bless you all.

Another lesson to remind that we must not take things for granted, heavily emphasized and validated by the Kobe Bryant’s case.

I just happened to be busy with all the unnecessary stuff since Christmas and furthermore, Lunar New Year seems to come real quick this year (less than 1 month FROM Christmas) and there is so much to do yet with limited time. And I realized that I did not set down a time to review and do up the resolutions so here I am.

Reviews for the Year 2019:

Changed a new job. Left the Blockchain world for some space and peace.

Year 2019 had been a year of soul-searching and understand what I want and need. A thorough awakening moment to redefine the core of things.

Year 2020;

<Priority> Less toxicity includes the environment and the people.

Focus on my goals in self attainment for business/ self/ family.

Spend more time with the girls/ family.

Spin-off Piggyback/ Scentimental/ Consultancy.

Achieve S100K

Learning to be a bigger person.

I need to learn to let go in the Year 2020 and by doing so, I held back on my social media postings where I am determined to go for the social media detox for a year and focus on my #willynn2020goals.

Seriously, this could be the only year where I focus on the business and leave the “stable” job for good. I only have 11 months left and my life is still “intoxicated”. I would be finding my winning formula to build my “Work-From-Home” empire and leverage on the gig/ sharing economy where the passion lives.

And some, even went to the extent to commit suicide over bad grades and critics.

The conversation with the girls especially Sharanne set me thinking about the expectations from (1) Parents, (2) Childrens/ Peer Pressure and lastly (3) the Society.

From Kids’ perspective, they only see as Exams, Stress, Breakdown.

On a legit note, the girls always shared with me that the majority of their friends had super packed schedule for the week and near to 90% are focusing on academics, some took up the music schedules as parents assume that it was a form of de-stress and based on the instrument that the parents like instead of what the kids love. And the reason?

They are too young to make decision so as Parent we have the responsibility to plan out for them.

Precisely. And that’s also the point that they are young that they might not be capable enough to handle the stress and negative emotions.

What we see from the external is different from what’s within.

So it set me thinking, what went wrong and what could we (as Parents) have done better?

I have friends who are on #TeamTuitionIsLife where Tuition plays a major big role in their lives and its everything they that do. The removal of tuition will make them “handicap” and unable to move on positively. Kids of #TeamTuitionIsLife normally have no much choices on their own and would need to obey the lesson plans crafted out by their parents, for their own good. Sounds familiar? Out of 10 friends, 8 of them fall into this category.

The remaining minority belongs to the #ChillMom where everything is possible and I belong to this category. Not even a single class of tuition/ enrichment and every weekend is just time spent with the kids.

I personally think that sometimes some kids will need enrichment to facilitate and motivate learning but don’t overdo it. Find a right balance. Keep the signs in check. Mentality is important for parents. Don’t yell and threaten on bad grades. It ain’t everything.

Kids felt more stress when parents compare as the (2) Peer Pressure is real. And just to be honest that kids are more sheltered as per compare to the kids 20-30 years ago. The latte developed grit to deal with things while kids of today need some parental grips, making them more vulnerable to critics.

I guess I focus on the different aspects – Soft Skills where I call it the EQ instead of IQ (Academics). The girls had been taught, social media skills, entrepreneurship, customer relations, product different and etc… Importantly I feel that parents need to teach kids how to manage failure or in nicer words, I call it, managing the not ideal situation. That’s why I curatedLittle Towkay Entrepreneurs Bootcamp for the kids, in order to give them a more holistic experience.

Acceptance is important. I do not have the greatest mind and will never do well in Maths in this lifetime. What I can do is to accept this weakness and hunt for my strengths. I can’t possibly force myself to be a Mathematician. Grades are not everything.

That’s why if I believed my kids can do well in Arts. The focus and the shift will be towards the SOTA direction. Afterall, who’s gonna teach the future generations the arty farty stuff if EVERYONE focus on the academics? Who’s going to teach ballet when everyone graduated as a lawyer or doctor? 😉

There’s always a Master in every profession, tio bo?

Afterall, I would rather spend the time and money spent on something that they love, so that Iwould get a positive ROI. Otherwise I’ll be waste my time and money on something that they do not even like/ love a teeny tiny bit and worst, do not learn from or make no change to one’s life.

Having 4 kiddos and to balance on that economy of scale is hard. Need to maximize the assets so I would emphasize on:

Getting them to learn something that they love.

Tell them Academics is not everything. Attitude is.

Accepting failures (and not scoring more than 85/ 100 is ok)

Enjoy their childhood. 🙂

Personally, this is what I would do and remind myself to do better than to surrender and join the #TeamTuitionIsLife.

No doubts, Society play a part too. We need more parents like this to overturn the mentality that focus strongly on grades and adapt more towards character development.

To parents out there, don’t let anything or anyone guilt trip you. The most important thing that you can provide to the kids is your time and love. 😊

Parents gonna walk the talk before a change is well-noted within the education system and system takes time.

The past week had been challenging, so is the trade markets. Oil prices, commodities, even the protest in Hongkong had created an impactful shift across all markets and including myself.

HA. Because currently, I’m in a role where I faced more rejections than anything else so I decide to YOLO once and went for a social experiment on how people reacted to me and whether anyone will cast judgment without knowing me as a person but just by my outlooks especially with my…

Followed by, the change of my hair color, not to a monotone but a unicorn tone. As this totally fits into my bill of fickle-mindedness because right after I dyed it at my trusted salon, J2 Hair Salon, I just realised that whichever color I feel like showcasing more, all I need was to change my hair parting in accordance.

Left (2016)/ Right (NOW)

Attitude. Adopted a heck care attitude because I just want to find out if gracious people tend to be bullied. And I wondered if I ever get beaten up if I keep on tsk-ing people (Check out how to tsk people correctly with strong support from CPF. Just joking.)

To be honest, I’m quite fearful that my parents/ colleagues/ bosses cannot accept the change as I did not inform them in advance/ prior to this.

Random note; the girls love it. They love anything unicorn. HAHA.

So during the weekends, when I bought the girls out, everyone seems to give a disapproving look on the streets and I even overheard a comment,

“See, girl. You must study hard if not next time, you will need to be food delivery rider and bring kids along for work.”

O-M-G. I carried a Grabfood paperbag with my kiddos waterbottles in it doesn’t meant I worked for them leh. I just cannot find a bag to contain their items when I’m rushing out. AND SOMEMORE, I graduated with a degree and alot of self-improvement certificates that helped me excel in my career. -_-

Best part, my mum did not even notice it when I was working around with my stuff when I’m back at my maiden home, for hours. Perhaps, tying up my hair helps.

Actually, the real challenge in me is actually how my bosses, colleagues, business partners whom I will meet, will react to my new looks.

So I reported for work on Monday. Here’re the results:

My boss did not comment but I feel he’s ok with this. [Boss ah, let me know if you are not ok hor?] Updated as of 16 Sept, my direct supervisor told me the CE disapprove of the colors. LOL so I dyed back on 17 Sept.

Colleagues were shocked and my Teamies gave me a look of affirmation then disapproval.

The guys who’ve worked at a different level and whom I’ve always spoken to in the lift saw me during lunch and thought I was “another” person. They couldn’t even recognize me.

Ok lah, to be honest, I’m not sure if they would have discussed this behind my back though but I couldn’t care less. :]

And the real deal came when I am running late for a meeting at Ayer Rajah. I was changing my route to cross over from East-West line to the Circle line at Buona Vista MRT and I heard a man standing in the middle of the pavements asking into the thin air if anyone can direct him to the East-West line (towards Jurong direction). I then realized he seems to have a partial visual impairment. Many of the people of different diversity and dress codes, walked past him without helping him.

Despite telling myself — to adopt a heck care attitude mentioned earlier, it just couldn’t get through me. Yes, I might be late if I lend a helping hand but well, that few minutes might matter more to him than to me. Imagine, he lost his footings and…

So I walked up and approached him and directed him to the right direction. Realising that the lift is a long walk from where he is, I asked him if it’s ok for me to lead him up to the platforms via escalator. He was apologizing that he might delayed my time and etc. I told him I’m free and asked him to hold onto my elbow.

Thank god for my stint in PA that exposed me to various techniques to deal from the physically challenged peeps.

In any case; to guide a blind/ partially sighted person; one would need to follow these steps (Courtesy from RNIB and Webeye):

Walk up, introduce yourself and speak to the person whom you are going to guide him.

Offer the person your services and ask him/ her on how would they prefer to be guided.

The person being guided should lightly grasp the guide’s arm, thumb out, just above their elbow. Right elbow of the guide will be grasped by the left hand of the person being guided, and vice versa. The left elbow of the guide will be grasped by the right hand of the person being guided. For children, have them grasp your wrist or hold your hand. When an individual acts as a human guide, they should walk a half step ahead of the person they are guiding.

Tell them about every steps/ curbs/ stairs as you approach them. Tell them to step “up” or “down”.

Mention any potential hazards/ narrow corridors that lie ahead and say where they are.

If you are guiding someone into a seat, place their hand on the back of the seat before they sit down, so they can orientate themselves.

Don’t walk away without saying you are leaving.

So that minute of help resulted in me knowing that he had his vision partially lost due to genetics. Despite the fact, he’s still making efforts to look for jobs and being mobile to stay positive.

When we parted at the platform, I was asking the few of the people standing on the platforms to look out for him and directed him to the right station (and yes, I got a few disapproving looks from some onlookers due to my tattoo and hair while I help the guy). Thank god for a couple of kind souls and he wished me well in my life.

Conversations like this pulled me up from all the rejections I had to face during my course of work (as they are downright demotivating) and I felt even more determined to help the community via Piggyback.

And thus I instill a habit for myself and the girls while decluttering those that I do not need. I will either post via Blessing for Low Incomes-Sg, Yishun Blessing group and my own BTO closed Facebook group to ask if anyone closeby would need the things that I no longer need.

To my surprise, a lot of my so-called stuff became prized processions of their new owners.

And this boils down to…

“When you judge others. You do not define them. You define yourself. No one had ever walk the same path as you. Experiences made current choices. Future choices are based on your aptitude towards life and attitude on how you approach it.”

Like what my mum always say, “When you are pointing 1 finger at others, you are pointing 4 at yourself.”

Brace on people and do lending a helping hand when possible because you’ll never know when you will need others to lend you theirs.

Was chancing upon this article that I shared via my LinkedIn, 2.5 years back and thus thought that I shall repost this as a reminder. X

The economy is bleak with a gloomy outlook shadowing the small red dot… This doesn’t stop me from finding an opportunity out there, out and away from my so-called “comfort zone”.

To be frank, I am comfortable with the work that I am doing, for the true fact that I had been in the company for 6 years, doing the same routine and the lifestyle of having to do shift works had been accustomed to. The colleagues are like my family and the workplace is just like a second home furthermore, I am in the Public Service, it would be a real stable job and importantly, stable amidst the uncertain economy thus many ask me the million-dollar question…

WHY DO YOU WANT TO MOVE OUT FROM THE COMFORT ZONE?

I took 2 months to decide on my new career path and I made it based on a few reasons and thought, perhaps it’s good to share in order to help those in a similar situation when they are deciding on the switch.

1) BROADEN YOUR PERSPECTIVE

I guess many of us always hear from the bosses that we need to inject new ideas to propel forward however this could be a double-edged sword to an extent. For organizations exclude the Government servants, profits are the main key to drive the company forward. Staying in the comfort zone would not broaden your perspective as everyone had been instilled the mindset that certain things need to be done only this way. It’s a repeated formula and a successful one but nowadays people are educated with the given technology, one will always need to break the norm and to do so, one needs to go out to see what is out of that comfort circle. It’s like the mundane education that we promote from Grade to Grade.

Just imagine this that we do not propel forward if we stay put in Grade 1, forever. Or do we still remember that we took on Science at Grade 3 and it was a subject that was not taught in Grade 1 and 2 and everyone was just excited to know about this new subject and realized the fact that there is THIS SUBJECT and the anticipation to know more awaits?

Travelling does has the same effect. 🙂

2) TO LEARN NEW THINGS/ KNOW NEW PEOPLE.

With that perspective being different, one would be anticipating a new life ahead in a strange environment, with an open mind. It’s important to throw away the mindset from the previous job to stick to the norm as the successful formula may differ from the job. Having an open mind, one would be able to learn new things and forged new friendships. One should never stop learning and learning at times will give us surprises in Life and perhaps unearthed our hidden talent. Think about this… Ever thought that in life you might not even know how to fry an egg? But again, all thanks to cookbooks, MasterChef shows and tons of practice, you manage to fry not just an egg, but perhaps, steam an egg, make an omelette and etc… How does one do that? Learn and practice and somehow it repeats. No one knows how to do that job in the first place, everyone started from somewhere and learn along the way, from people and from many other sources.

3) CAREER PROGRESSION/ MAKE YOURSELF MARKETABLE

Always move for career progression if your current place is stagnant. Please do not get me wrong, I am not recommending job-hopping. Someone should stay at least 3 years to learn almost ALL the ropes within the Organisation. Compare this. Candidate A with 10 years in the same company but with/ without steady progression but on another hand, Candidate B with 10 years in 2 companies with the fact that it’s always a career progression path (Executive >>> Manager). Employers will look at both and perhaps, Candidate B pose more exposure which meant, they are open to changes (it’s a hard truth that it’s evitable in current world) and perhaps had more experience in dealing with sticky situations. Employers want to employ talents to solve their problems BUT not to create more problems or left the problems unsolved. Getting out of comfort zone proved your willingness to take up risks and challenges, this gonna be a competitive advantage from the peers who followed the norm. Successful people always do not follow the norm. Quote Steve Jobs.

4) YOU WON’T FEEL THAT PINCH – MONETARY CONTENTMENT

Especially you are doing a total career switch of industry. As you climbed higher and normally the more years you spend in the organization, you command more pay but if you are going to do that switch, the other industry might not meet your current pay package and you might suffer a big gap. The sooner you start to figure out what you want, the lesser pinch you will feel in terms of monetary contentment. And in reality, we need that money to finance whatever we have and to keep us going.

5) THE #YOLO THEORY

#YOLO. There will never be a good time to move out from comfort zone and when the right opportunity come by, why not especially when one had no commitments – kids and one is still young especially. The younger generations will need to explore out from their comfort zone because this is an advantage. If the opportunity came and it wasn’t the right one, the young ones can restart the career again as they had plenty of time to catch up. On a bonus note, if the opportunity tends to be a passion/ hobby. 🙂 Importantly, no regrets till the very last breath. I heard feedback from my current colleagues whom some had stayed in the job for more than 30 years and regretted not stepping out to see the world.

AND A BONUS POINTER,

If you wake up in the morning and dreads going to work. It’s time for a change. Research says that the more motivated you are towards your work, it drives a higher efficiency in the job. Also, some of you might just want to get away from negative energy/ toxic people.

Importantly, we must always enjoy what we are doing and STAY HUMBLE.

Good Luck.

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT:

To my colleagues (Jolene, Radzi, Andrew, July, Esther, Ervin, Andy, Michael, Qinghui, Mdm Lau, Angela, Noraini, Ris and etc…) who enriched, endured and endeared my 6 years stay in People’s Association who made me feel like home and treated me as a family member. I will miss you all.

To my superiors, family members and close friends who are supportive of my move. I will be grateful as it gives me a push to leap forward.

I would like to thank the superiors (ex-superiors too) and the current organization for all the opportunities given.

To all the friends who I had made during these 6 years, thank you because I am glad to have known you all and it’s you who made Who-I-Am today.

Ok, so last weekend on 24 Aug, I decide to go for an impromptu roadtrip to J.B with the 4 girls, BFF and R. Was telling my family about the VEP registration that is gonna kick in with effect from 1st October 2019 (after many delays since years ago, and hopefully no more delays O_O) and realised I didn’t share this info with R. LOL I think all my friends gave up on me liao. Especially A.

So we crossed Singapore customs and R told me that we will need to top up the ‘Touch & Go’ card over at Malaysia Customs. *Awkward silence* As far as I can remember, alot of my friends had been telling me that the Touch & Go (T&G) top-up counters had ceased operations since Aug 2018 and it’s by sheer luck if we happen to see the lady with the handy top-up machine walking around at JB customs back in Mid Jul 2019. So when we approached the Malaysia customs after a 2.5hours jam on Saturday, I asked the Immigration Officer (IO) where can we top up the T&G card. To my horror, she says there is no available means to top up at the customs and the only way out is to borrow another’s. Like what. So R tried his luck to walk around to locate a counter or that lady with the handy machine. Guess what, NOPE. The IO was right, so we had to borrow from another’s. Thankfully, there was a kind lady who loaned us hers and we paid her for the usage.

Anyway, with the above, there is indeed NO way that one can top-up at the Malaysia customs. One can only top-up at petrol kiosks, convenience stores and also, at the Watsons located at LG of KSL City Mall(I know right, I was kind of amazed when we are asking around on where can we top up the T&G card. Please note that there are 2 Watsons outlets at KSL City Mall. Only the one at lower floor at LG not G, can assist with the top up) and in any case, if you need the T&G card prior to enter Malaysia, you can only get it via Carousell or you can try to download the T&G app via here (since you will have to download this soon for VEP registration).

Touch & Go eWallet

Like finally every single country is trying to embrace e-payment. Not a bad move though. Ok, on another hand, with the Touch & Go card incident last weekend, it prompted me further to check out the VEP information.

Thank god for a collective community’s effort. I happened to chance upon this entry by Andrew Wang on Facebook. And it kind of give me a better idea of how it goes. Mothership had too reported on this here. (P.S: I’ve wrote to Andrew to get his permission to share his post here. 🙂 Thank you Andrew once again!)

Some background on what is VEP (Vehicle Entry Permit)

Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) is a permit issued by the Road Transport Department (under Section 66H of the Road Transport Act 1987) that allows the entry of foreign vehicles into Malaysia. Owners or representatives duly appointed by the owners of ALL foreign registered vehicles entering Peninsular Malaysia are required to register online for VEP through this portal. VEP registered vehicles will be issued non-transferrable RFID tags that uniquely identify each vehicle.

Road charge (RC) is a fee imposed on all foreign registered private vehicles (excluding motorcycles) when entering Malaysia. The fee of RM20.00 will be charged each time these vehicles enter the country.

The Malaysia Government had announced that they will commence the implementation with effect from 1st October 2019. So our dear fellow friends, you have 1 month+ left to register for it. 😉

Thanks to Andrew; here’s the steps to register:

Application Process:📍 Step 1: Registration at VEP webpage (Vehicle and Driver) – You will receive a “Confirmation Slip Email” if successful.📍 Step 2: Download TouchnGo eWallet app and setup (register using **NRIC only).📍 Step 3: Make appointment in VEP webpage after receiving “Invite to Appointment Email” (**may take days to weeks, some months from successful registration at Step 1).📍 Step 4: Bring along required documents to Appointment Station (refer photo below for documents required). RFID on TouchnGo will be activated soon after your tagging.

Credits: Andrew Wang’s Facebook

Total 5 Documents to bring (Number 2 to 6 in the list)📌 Appointment Slip (emailed to you a pdf. file after scheduling the appointment)📌 Confirmation Slip (emailed to you after u register your vehicle details, or print from their VEP webpage if u have made any amendments thereafter)📌 LTA Vehicle Registration Details (aka Logcard, Login to onemotoring.com.sg > View Vehicle Details > Print)📌 Certificate of Insurance or Cover Note (Just the main page with Date of Insurance from when to when etc)📌 Passport Copy💡 A copy each will do, although they might never want to see the original but bring along in case any issue.💡 Take note: Passport copy and not NRIC.💡 Use NRIC for registration of your TouchnGo eWallet only.

I guess there should be no noise made to the VEP registration as it was delayed since some years back. Andrew had provided detailed explanation via his Facebook post, so please click into the respective pictures for more info.

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BRIEF INTRO

1988. Dragon. Sagittarius. I had been a Lacto-Vegetarian since I was 7. Sing-ka-por-lang (Singaporean) who reside in the infamous Yishun with a mega big brood of 4 daughters and 2 furkids.

Led a Mum+Tech+Boss life that I’m always looking forward to early retirement soon thus this blog serves as my memoirs towards the GOAL and also to pen down bits and pieces of my motherhood, investment and entrepreneur journey.